Susan Witt, the executive director of Western Massachusetts-based think tank E.F. Schumacher Society, a group focused on local production, was quoted in online publication Worldchanging: “In the last four years, there has been a renewed interest in local economy, local production.”

Since its inception about two years ago, more than $2 million in BerkShares has gone through the region. The currency’s price, 100 BerkShares to $90, offers customers an inherent 10 percent discount and gives them impetus to shop at participating businesses.

According to George Washington University Law School Professor Lewis D. Solomon, local currencies gain attention as a way to shore up local economies. The BerkShares have been no exception, with Witt getting calls from around the world, asking for advice on how to launch their own alternative monetary systems.

Two communities in the United Kingdom have launched their own BerkShares-inspired currency. In March 2007, the English town of Totnes launched its own money. Lewes, England, followed suit in September 2008. Both share the pound as the name of its local currency as well as a desire for residents to patronize locally owned businesses.

“The idea behind it is to encourage as many local people as possible to shop locally,” Lewes Mayor Michael Chartier told the BBC. “Lewes has a tradition of small shops and hasn't got a large number of major chain stores that a lot of other towns have.”

Euro co-founder Bernard Lietaer says that at least 4,000 alternative currencies are in use worldwide. In 1990, the number was below 100.

“We need our own money more than ever now,” Phra Supajarawat, a Buddhist monk who moonlights as the unofficial governor of the bank behind the bia, told The Wall Street Journal. “Things are turning bad in Thailand and people need something they can believe in.”

Also spurred on by economic hardship, in 2007, some parts of India were seeing shortages in small-denomination coins at the hands of hoarders who melted down currency and smuggled the metal to Bangladesh, where it was made into razor blades that fetched much more on the market than the face value of the coin. Some tea gardens in India’s northeastern state of Assam resorted to issuing homemade currency in the form of cardboard slips to be used on premises.

FindingDulcinea’s Web Guide to the U.S. Economy includes an outline of the history of the American economy, an overview of federal economic oversight organizations and suggestions for where to stay on top of financial news.